The Mental Takedown Podcast

Me-asks open-ended question  Zach-Talks for 5 minutes Me-*visibly shocked that he is still talking Zach-Talks for 5 more minutes  Me-*Totally Shook Conclusion-Zach Sherman can't shut up Now, before all of you come after me for being a complete a**hole, I had been gone for 6 months and I was unmotivated to keep doing the show, with the whole season in limbo, the overarching theme with these interviews was COVID, COVID, AND FREAKING MORE COVID, every single freaking podcast had the overarching theme of beating a dead horse and asking about how the wrestlers improved over what feels like an infinite lockdown,  What I cam to the conclusion is that every single college wrestler is a motivated and fit machine that's going to be the .1% of the population that doesn't spend the lockdown period Watching TV and eating junk food until the cows come home, and even if they did, they sure aren't about to admit it with a camera in their face during an interview. I needed someone with ...

 I'M BACK! (and this time I don't plan on going anywhere...) Your favorite amateur writer and podcast host with way too many chess references that no one else understands is back. Man time flies faster than we can freakin blink... call me a one-hit-wonder, flash in a pan, or whatever other colloquialisms that suits you, but it's been 6 months since a naive 16-year-old booted up a computer, did some basic research, and caused a huge mess in the wrestling world for about 48 hours. Wrestling media has gone through a massive transformation, largely due to the increase in competition. That doesn't take a genius to figure out. One thing I have promised from day one is no BS, calling the action exactly as I see it. Although many of the long term structural problems with the way the sport is promoted have gone largely unaddressed and unsolved, we are at least seeing a short-term attempt to at least allow the top-level of wrestlers to survive making a living off their craft. We ...

 The more I think about it daily, the state of wrestling politics is a microcosm of our nation and in some cases, our international political climate. There is a saying as old as time, "A proper compromise is when both parties leave the table unhappy." The very basic definition of a compromise is an agreement that is reached with both sides making concessions. I don't understand why we think shaming AD's and talking about the "benefits of wrestling" on Twitter does anything except piss off AD's. Everything that circulates on the dark embers of social media about various athletic directors is probably true. They are crooked. They are short. They are arrogant. They are unfair. They are apathetic to student-athletes. This has been the reality of college sports certainly in my lifetime, and probably will be at least for the next 10-15 years. Just like in modern-day politics, the hardest changes to make are to those of the structure itself. Pointing out the f...

       First of all, before I dive into this issue as you all know by now I am extremely passionate about, I'm. sorry. I and the wresting community have failed you. I am sorry to each and every one of the wrestlers on the Fresno State Roster. You will now inevitably have to make unnecessary life-changing decisions because of our failures. I am sorry that we took the entertainment and raw athletic ability that you provided us with for granted. I'm sorry that we as a community were unable to come up with the necessary monetary funds to keep your dream alive. I'm sorry that I sat in total negligence as hegemonic media companies profited off what you worked so hard to achieve and still will continue to achieve. We as a community owe an apology to Brandon Betancourt, Beau Colombini, Hunter Cruz, Chris Deloza, Haiden Drury, Anthony Federico, Aaron Gandara, Greg Gaxiola, Randy Gonzalez, Zack Gonzalez, Jackson Hemauer, Gary Joint, Adam Kemp, DJ Lloren, Anthony Moulton, Mateo...

FloSports's plan is genius... if they were a pharmaceutical company. Flo reminds me of that San Francisco pharma startup that thinks they've found the cure to cancer, then decides to put together a fancy investor pitch with nothing more than sweet jargon. What happens next? They raise a ridiculous amount of capital but come to find out that the "magical cancer cure" was nothing more than another fancy placebo pill. It gets worse, though, then they have no other choice but to tell any people with internal employees not to say anything, or else the whole world will know of the awful fraud. It leaves them with just one choice with any defectors, the dreaded slip of paper that asks your ass to show up in court...   I haven't gone to business school, but the No.1 rule is they under promise and over deliver, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. This pay structure is always impossibly difficult to pull off. This has been proven in various other sectors. Remember the good old days, ...

Literally I've been slacking on the blog, Episodes 7 and 8 are now out with Devin Schroder and Taylor Venz and Monday I will be releasing a interview with Noah Gonser... More to come soon...

I am back! It feels so good to finally speak at normal speed and not have to worry about debate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I promise I will crank out episodes at a much furious rate than ever before. It really is amazing how stupid we can be sometimes. I started this show because I wanted to know more about the psychology behind something as competitive as wrestling, and the day to day struggles of being an athlete. I'm certainly not asking anyone to spill their entire life story, but my hope was to at least gain a little more insight than the average podcast. I'm not joking when I say this, I had Grant eyed up from the day I started this show, like let's keep it real, the dude literally has a bionic body at this point and by ordinary means should have quit wrestling a long time ago. I told my parents half of what Grant had gone through, and my mom, who has been a registered nurse for almost 15 years now, made a grimace that I've never seen her make. ...